Thank you everyone for chiming in. My original arrangement is still the best
for my (admittedly limited) needs, so I will likely stick with it, but I'm
glad it stimulated some discussion and I've learned a few new things along
the way as well. And if my contribution helps someone else, so much the
better.

Long live newsgroups.

Petr



"Petr Danes" pí¹e v diskusním pøíspìvku
...
I recently started teaching in a software technical school, and my first
course was in advanced Excel. Naturally, I prepared a workbook with lots of
examples on various worksheets, but not until I started lecturing did I
realize that lots of sheets mean lots of scrolling left and right to locate
the correct sheet. I'd never needed a workbook with many sheets for any of
my own projects, nor those I had created for others. The course went fairly
well anyway, but I wanted a better way to navigate between sheets.

Part of the idea came from ASAP Utilities' function of creating a separate
index sheet with clickable hyperlinks for all sheets, and part of the code
from John Walkenbach's Excel Power Programming book. (My thanks to you
both.)

The clickable index sheet function is handy, but solves only half of the
problem - it quickly locates a sheet 'somewhere', but getting back to the
index sheet for another shot out into the myriad of sheets is still a
hassle. I decided a menu bar approach suited my needs better.

The code reads in all the sheet names and creates a dropdown menu of sheet
names. Originally it included a sort as well, but then I decided that I
prefer the menu in the same order as the sheets in the workbook, and my
naming and ordering scheme results in the names being in order anyway. The
sort is still there, just the call commented out, in case someone wants to
use it that way. There is no error checking and it takes no account of
hidden properties of sheets, since I don't use that, but it could be added
easily enough. The code is called from the Workbook_Open routine, so that
the menu is freshly rebuilt every time the workbook opens. Probably not
completely necessary, but the execution time is trivial and it makes for
ease of use. I initially added a call from the Workbook_NewSheet event,
but abandoned that since the code adds the default sheet name in use at
the instant of creation (Sheet1 or some such), which is not very useful,
since I always rename the sheet to something sensible, but by then the
sheet has already been added to the menu with default name. If there were
Workbook_SheetRename and Workbook_SheetDelete events, I would add calls
there, as well as the NewSheet event. That would make it completely
automatic and always current, but this works well enough. The first item
on the menu, before the sheet names is a refresh call, so I can keep the
menu up to date manually without having to close and re-open the workbook
or switch to the VBA editor.

There are two versions of the menu code, one creates a simple dropdown
menu list, suitable for up to approximately thirty sheets on my machine (a
bigger monitor would allow more), the second creates a two-stage list,
grouped by the first character in the sheet name. I name my sheets by
course day, so that "1.n xxxxx" is a sheet for the first day of the
course, "2.n xxxxx" for the second day and so on. "0.n xxxxx" sheets are
general sheets, not intended for any specific day. The second method
obviously better handles a very large number of sheets, at the cost of a
fraction of a second delay while the second tier unfolds. At the moment,
my code creates both versions. I'll have to use them for a while to see
which one I prefer for classroom use.

Pete

--
This e-mail address is fake, to keep spammers and their auto-harvesters
out
of my hair. If you want to get in touch personally, I am 'pdanes' and I
use
yahoo mail. But please use the newsgroup when possible, so that all may
benefit from the exchange of ideas.



Start code (watch for line wrap!)
================================================== ==

Option Explicit

Dim AEb As CommandBarButton
Dim AEp As CommandBarPopup
Dim AEp2 As CommandBarPopup
Dim SheetNames() As String

Sub SheetMenu()
Dim i&

ReDim SheetNames(1 To ActiveWorkbook.Sheets.Count)

' Fill array with sheet names
For i = 1 To UBound(SheetNames)
SheetNames(i) = Sheets(i).Name
Next i

' Sort the array in ascending order
' Not used in current implementation,
' but simply uncomment line below to order sheet names.
'BubbleSort SheetNames

' Build the sheet menus
MakeMenuItem ' simple menu
MakeMenuItem2 ' 2-tier menu

End Sub

Private Sub MakeMenuItem()
' Create the menu bar addition
Dim i&
With Application.CommandBars("Worksheet Menu Bar")
On Error Resume Next
.Controls("Sheets").Delete
On Error GoTo 0
Set AEp = .Controls.Add(msoControlPopup)
With AEp
.Caption = "Sheets"
Set AEb = .Controls.Add(msoControlButton)
With AEb
.Caption = "(...Refresh...)"
.OnAction = "GoToSheet"
.Parameter = "(...Refresh...)"
End With
For i = 1 To UBound(SheetNames)
Set AEb = .Controls.Add(msoControlButton)
With AEb
.Caption = SheetNames(i)
.OnAction = "GoToSheet"
.Parameter = SheetNames(i)
End With
Next i
End With
End With
End Sub

Private Sub MakeMenuItem2()
' Create the menu bar addition
Dim i&, nmhld$

' Only one character is used for grouping
nmhld = "!"
With Application.CommandBars("Worksheet Menu Bar")
On Error Resume Next
.Controls("Sheets2").Delete
On Error GoTo 0
Set AEp = .Controls.Add(msoControlPopup)
With AEp
.Caption = "Sheets2"
Set AEb = .Controls.Add(msoControlButton)
With AEb
.Caption = "(...Refresh...)"
.OnAction = "GoToSheet"
.Parameter = "(...Refresh...)"
End With
For i = 1 To UBound(SheetNames)
If nmhld < Left$(SheetNames(i), Len(nmhld)) Then
Set AEp2 = .Controls.Add(msoControlPopup)
AEp2.Caption = Left$(SheetNames(i), InStr(SheetNames(i),
"."))
nmhld = Left$(SheetNames(i), Len(nmhld))
End If
With AEp2
Set AEb = .Controls.Add(msoControlButton)
With AEb
.Caption = SheetNames(i)
.OnAction = "GoToSheet"
.Parameter = SheetNames(i)
End With
End With
Next i
End With
End With
End Sub

Sub BubbleSort(List() As String)
' Sorts the List array in ascending order
Dim First As Integer, Last As Integer
Dim i As Integer, j As Integer
Dim Temp

First = LBound(List)
Last = UBound(List)
For i = First To Last - 1
For j = i + 1 To Last
If List(i) List(j) Then
Temp = List(j)
List(j) = List(i)
List(i) = Temp
End If
Next j
Next i
End Sub

Public Sub GoToSheet()
' Action routine called by the menu
' Passed parameter is either the sheet name to call or the refresh command
If CommandBars.ActionControl.Parameter = "(...Refresh...)" Then
SheetMenu
Else
ActiveWorkbook.Sheets(CommandBars.ActionControl.Pa rameter).Activate
End If
End Sub